


Eirias

by Rosie_Rues



Category: Susan Cooper - Dark Is Rising series
Genre: F/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006, recipient:Maud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie_Rues/pseuds/Rosie_Rues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bran is dreaming; Will turns up without warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eirias

**Author's Note:**

> There was a reason I set this in Oxford - [explained here](http://rosemaryandrue.livejournal.com/1999/12/23/). Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write in this fandom.

The midwinter light fell softly onto Oxford, making the tops of the buildings blaze golden and casting the streets into shadow. A low mist was rising off the river, blurring the skyline and hiding the hills that rose around the city, low and slumberous. The streets were busy with Christmas shoppers, bundled into winter coats and laden with bags. Traffic stood solid along the narrow roads, exhaust fumes seeping into the air to darken the ancient Cotswold stone of the old colleges further. Christmas music pumped out of the shops on Cornmarket, and below the Carfax tower carol singers were lifting their voices to the darkening sky.

Bran Davies spared them a quick glance as he turned into the High, wondering if they knew what echoes they were invoking. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets, scowling, and strode onwards, his long coat billowing behind him. The crowds made way for him, and he smiled, lips twisting up, wondering if it was his crumbling mental state they were sensing or whether it was just the normal reaction to his pale hair and skin.

The frost had never lifted this morning, and gleaming cobwebs hung from every gate, fat with ice. As he crossed Magdalen Bridge he could see them lacing between the balusters, glinting through the mist. The fog was heavier now, swirling off the water below in slow breaths, and when he looked back he could not see the city. Every sound was dulled, even the cars passing at his back, as they were miles, not feet away.

 _It's like the moment,_ he thought, watching his cold breath swirl like the fog, _before the music carries you out of time._

Then he realised what he had thought and swore out loud, snarling in Welsh as he stomped off the bridge towards home.

*

Later, standing in their attic flat on the hillside above the city, he gazed out of the window. The fog and the night masked everything, and all he could see was his own reflection, as pale as a ghost, edges fading.

In the kitchen, Jane was humming along to the carols on the radio. The low accompaniment of her voice made the choirboys sound somehow less unearthly, less like the mountain wind given voice.

The treacherous part of his memory sighed, and he heard such a voice breaking into terror, screaming, _Jane! Jane!_

Bran pulled his glasses off and looked into the eyes of his reflection. He'd never liked mirrors. Never liked looking at himself too closely, maybe. Perhaps he had always known there was more missing from him than colour: there was an emptiness in him, awaiting completion.

 _And there's madness, too_ he told himself, gazing into his own eyes. In the reflection they looked brown, tired and ordinary. _You're nothing more than a man, boy, whatever your dreams may say._

He did not believe it, not in the heart of him.

His reflection stood beyond the glass, muted and sad. It should have been blazing, Bran thought, lifting his hand to press against the cold window, golden-eyed and proud.

The heat of his hand made the window grey with condensation and he watched his reflection fade. It was nothing more than a trick of the light.

The doorbell rang.

"Bran?" Jane called. "Can you go?"

He ignored her, lifting his other hand to the window.

"Oh, really," she snapped and he heard her make her way out of the kitchen. "I'll get it, then. Can you turn the hob down if it boils over?"

In his dreams there was a tower of glass, in a sunlit land.

He heard voices at the door, soft, good-humoured English conversation.

In that tower there had been a king, his glory as dim as the fog.

"Bran!" Jane called, voice soft with delight, switching on the light. "Guess who's here!"

"I am the tomb of every hope," Bran whispered to the window and turned.

Will Stanton was standing in the doorway, smiling cheerfully. "Sorry to drop in uninvited," he said.

"Oh, you," Jane said, laughing. "You always know the perfect time to visit."

"Do I?" Will said, looking puzzled.

Bran crossed his arms and leant back against the window. "Like magic," he said, as he always did, and this time he wasn't really joking.

*

"But where have you been?" Jane asked. "When did you get back? Are you staying?"

"Sit down," Bran said, pressing on her shoulder. "And let the man get a word in edgeways."

"I need to lay the table."

"You need to stay off your feet," he said. "And I can put a few place mats down by myself."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Somebody's feeling masterful. Look at him, Will - incipient fatherhood makes him come over all medieval."

"It happens to the best of men," Will said solemnly. "They think it hides the panic."

"Whose side are you on?" Bran grumbled from the kitchen.

Jane laughed. "Yours, I'm sure. He always is."

"Funny way of showing it," Bran said, clenching his fist around a handful of cutlery to hide his shudder. The prongs of a fork dug into his hand and he said, "Ow."

"Careful," Jane said, but Will was looking at him, suddenly serious. Bran met his gaze, feeling as if he was standing in the fog on the bridge again. There was his old friend Will, oldest friend of them all, safe and sturdy and sound. Yet now Bran looked at him and saw a strength as deep as mountains, immovable and implacable.

Then Will smiled lightly, round face creasing, and said, "South America, for a while, and then Iceland. All over, really."

Bran, shaking, went to set the table, leaving them to chat.

Later, when they finished eating and gathered in a warm corner, Jane asked, "Where are you staying?"

"Oh, I'll go for a train soon. I'll ring before I leave if you don't mind - see if someone can pick me up at Taplow."

"Will!" Jane said reproachfully, twisting round to look up at Bran. He smiled at her quickly, though his stomach flipped, and said, "Our sofa is yours. It's bloody cold out there."

"I wouldn't want to impose-" Will started, but Jane shushed him. Bran pressed his face against her hair and took a breath. He had to put this away, force back the ridiculous dreams which made him skittish of his best friend. It was just the weather and too many hours crouched over manuscripts in the Bod.

*

On the edge of sleep, pressed warmly against Jane's back, hands cupped over the firm curve of her stomach, he murmured, "What do you dream of, Jenny?"

Her breath continued slow and steady, and he thought she might have slipped over the line into sleep. Then she said, voice thick and slow, "People. Hills. The sea."

He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. "Do you ever dream strange things?"

"Strange things," she echoed. He tensed, expecting her to laugh the question away. Then she murmured, "I hear things."

"Things?" He spread his fingers, marvelling afresh. There were still miracles in the world, even if there was no magic.

"I hear the sea. Or the wind in the trees. They sound the same sometimes. Music. There's a flute that plays in my dreams and every time I forget the tune until I hear it again. Names."

"Names?"

"Jane, Jana, Juno, Jane, Jenny, Gwennie, Guinevere, Gwen, Jen, Jane."

"I'm the only one who calls you Jenny."

"I know," she said and turned enough to meet his eyes. In the dark room he could only just see her smile. her eyes were dark with mystery.

"Do they scare you?" he asked, rearranging them both so he could hold her tight. "Your dreams?"

She shook her head, the ends of her hair tickling him. "I think there's a part of all of us that is sleeping, and it shows in our dreams. It is nothing to fear."

"Do you think Will dreams?"

Now she laughed, dropping her head to his shoulder again. "Bran, go to sleep."

*

In his dreams he knew it all again, the cold truth of his real being and the forgetting of it. And in his anger, he dreamt again of the last rising of the Dark, the blazing horror of the night. He saw again the silver on the tree and the shadow in the air and the great flame of Eirias before him, burning as he had burnt, made for the same purpose.

And he was filled with terror, sheer and absolute, but still he looked on the midsummer tree, the fear slicing away from him as he was himself the blade. Beside him, he could dimly see Will, snapping apart the chain of signs, as the air shook with the thunder of the riders converging on the tree.

But Will did not put the Sign of Light into his hand. Instead his fingers closed firmly around Bran's wrist.

The fog came rushing up around them, and the blazing sword shimmered and vanished. Bran cried out and now the fear came crashing in on him, black and sickly.

Will's hands closed over his shoulders, firm and sure, and he said, voice warm and deep, "I could hear your dreams from half the world away."

Bran stepped backwards, fear burning away. "I didn't ask you to listen, _dewin_."

Will smiled at him, his usual foolish grin, and said, "Don't have much choice, do I?"

Swinging round to storm away, Bran stopped dead. They were back in Oxford, on the banks of the River Cherwell where it ran through the University Parks. The fog was still heavy, blanching all the colour from the frosty banks and the grey water. Only a faint light in the greyness overhead hinted at the moon.

"Fog," he snapped. "Still fog."

"I'm not the one who's preoccupied by it," Will said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Bran glared at him, fists clenching and fury sparking through him. Will stared back, meeting his gaze without flinching. He looked cold, a round-faced Englishman, in faded jeans and a battered leather jacket, so unremarkable Bran had seen people look straight past him. The fog moved like smoke around him, slow and sleepy.

"You realise that when I'm awake I think I'm going insane?"

"Yes," Will said sadly.

Bran blinked. He hadn't been expecting that. "What?"

"I know," Will said. "All I can do is take it all away again."

"Don't you fucking _dare!_ "

"Haven't yet, have I?" He began to walk along the path, and Bran fell in beside him, still feeling off balance.

"Why not?"

Will shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "I should do."

"But you haven't."

"No."

"Always elucidating, talking to you," Bran muttered, but his anger was slipping away into the fog.

Will flashed him a quick smile. Then he said, "I saw Barney while I was in Australia. He's doing well with the painting."

Bran rolled his eyes. "I know. He's my brother-in-law, isn't he?"

"And Simon's in Trewissick."

"Whatever point you're making, make it directly."

"They've forgotten, both of them. Forgotten it all."

"Ah," Bran said and they walked on in silence until he said, "Jane dreams."

"Yes."

They had reached the high bridge over the Cherwell now and they turned up it without consulting, stretching against its steep rise. At its apex they paused. Before them the river meadows stretched east, hidden by the fog. Behind them lay the Parks and the city, and beyond them the narrow band of the Thames and the rising hills. All were hidden.

"Can you let me remember?" Bran asked softly. "When I'm waking."

"I could," Will said, gazing down at the river. "That doesn't mean I should."

"Why not? And if you say because you want to I shall drop you in the river."

"It wouldn't hurt me," Will said thoughtfully. "Even if this was more than a dream."

"Will."

"Sorry. Would you be any more content, if you could remember? Would it make your life better?"

"Yes," Bran snapped.

"Really? Or would you always be wondering? Life's too precious for might-have-beens."

Bran sighed, wrapping his bare hands around the iron handrail. "The choice was mine to make. I think I have the right to bloody well know I made it."

"Perhaps," Will said miserably.

"Or what? I stay like this. Pendragon in my dreams and poor, confused Bran Davies when I wake. Am I to live like that, always haunted, happier in my dreams than when I'm waking? I've a wife and a baby coming who need me whole. And you stand there and watch me, you who led me to the truth and whose master made me forget. And if you take the memories away again, you will break me, and that's not fair on any of us, on me or you or Jane. I'm only half a man without them-"

"No," Will said softly. "Without them you are no more than a man."

"But still only half myself."

"You've been happy without them."

"That doesn't mean I won't be happy with them. I was never one of those unlucky mortals drawn into the battle, Will. It was never something which happened to me. I came out of the first great rising to stand against the last. I was created for it. When my father's man took my knowledge away, he tore out the greater part of me."

Will looked up at him, sharp and startled, and Bran let go of the rail and lifted an eyebrow at him. "What, _dewin_ , did you never see your master that way?"

"I saw it," Will said, frowning slightly. "I didn't think it the most important. And I think you are confusing yourself with the sword."

Bran laughed. "The sword mattered less than the winning of it. You understood Gwion better than his king. Are you going to let me take Gwyddno's road?"

"Now you're just being obnoxious," Will said mildly, and Bran couldn't hold back laughter.

"You may regret it," Will said.

"Some risks are worth taking," Bran shot back. "Or so someone told me before I proposed to Jane."

"Low," Will murmured. "Using a man's words against him." He shrugged and reached up and snapped a few twigs off the branches hanging over the bridge. "Here."

Bran took them, watching the shimmer of frost which coated them melt under his fingers. "What am I meant to do with these?"

"It's your dream."

"So it is," Bran said, amused, and hurled them into the river before the frost could melt from them entirely.

*

He was woken by the recoil of the mattress as Jane rolled out and staggered towards the bathroom. Groaning, he sat up.

And then he remembered.

For a moment he sat, dazzled. Then he laughed and padded out of the bedroom. He could smell bacon frying.

Will was cooking breakfast. He looked up as Bran came into sight, his eyes guarded and wary.

" _Bore da_ ," Bran said, grinning at him. "You can visit more often."

He got a strained grin in reply. "This isn't for you, mate. I just got tired of listening to my hosts snore."

"Eat enough for four every morning, do you?"

"I'm a growing boy."

Bran snorted and went to draw back the curtains. The sun was rising over the hill, light streaming down towards him, bright and sharp as a blade. The sky above was winter blue, clean and cold and vast. He took a breath, feeling the self-knowledge settle in his bones.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"I'm still not sure I've done the right thing."

Bran shrugged. "It's within your power to make me forget again. If you must, though, do it with my consent."

Will came over to join him by the window. He turned his face to the sunlight and said, "If you ask it of me, I will. Only then."

"Can't ask fairer than that," Bran said and grinned at him.

"You look happy," Jane said from the doorway, sounding faintly surprised.

Bran held out an arm for her. "I am. The sun's risen, the fog has lifted and Will here has cooked us all breakfast."

"And it's Midwinter Day," she said, brushing past him to kiss Will on the cheek. "Happy birthday."

"Bloody hell," Bran said. "Is it really?"

She tapped him on the arm. "Hopeless."

He shook his head, smiling. "Full of hope, I am. _Penblwydd hapus_ , Will."

" _Diolch_." And in his mind, softly, _And gramercy for a secret shared._

"The bacon's burning," Jane said and hurried to rescue it.

Bran, washed by the flame of the sunrise, watched them both move through the light, and lifted his head. He had no regrets.

  



End file.
